Ange Postecoglou has been criticised for presenting the same answer no matter what question was posed of him. For much of this encounter against Liverpool, hopeless Tottenham did not even do that. They were just bad.
Until the result was already beyond any reasonable doubt, there was not even a sponge cake on offer from Postecoglou’s side here – just an empty plate. While their inappropriately gung-ho approach has been vexatious to fans and enormously fun for the rest of us, to be left without even that for so much of the game was far, far worse. That Liverpool would control the run of play was to be expected, and defensively, Spurs at least have the excuse of playing almost a completely makeshift goalkeeper-and-back-four combo.
But it was genuinely shocking how poorly they did regardless. Conceding six goals at home to a divisional rival should set alarm bells ringing anywhere, regardless of the quality of the opposition. Even more surprising just how little Tottenham’s full complement of midfield and attacking personnel offered in return, Dejan Kulusevski excepted.
The only surprising part of the scoreboard on the final whistle was the ‘3’ on Tottenham’s side, not the ‘6’ on Liverpool’s. READ: Tottenham Hotspur urged to sanction ‘stunning move’ to sign Liverpool star as ‘brilliant’ replacement Tottenham’s narrow 4-3-3 seemed to scream at Liverpool’s wide men: “cross all you like, we’ll defend the width of the box”. The wisdom of that is e.
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